Aida Othman completed her LL.B. at the International Islamic University of Malaysia in 1993. After being called to the Malaysian Bar in 1994, she pursued her LL.M. at Cambridge University in England, graduating in 1995. She taught for a while at the Law Faculty of her alma mater until leaving for the U.S. at the end of 1997 to begin her PhD. She is preparing her Ph.D. in Comparative Law and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she is studying dispute resolution, in particular al-sulh (reconciliation or amicable settlement).